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Ad-Rock (Beastie Boys) birthday - TIMH

+3 HS
John Cooper's lucky pig's picture
October 31, 2015 at 9:37am
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Ad-Rock, or the King Ad-Rock if you’re not into the whole brevity thing, was born Adam Horovitz today in 1966 in New York City. His father was Israel Horovitz, an award-winning play and screenwriter and his mother was Doris Keefe, an Irish Catholic. His brother and sister are also involved in the arts as television and film producers.

Ad-Rock was a punk rock fan as a kid with a particular affinity for The Clash. He started playing guitar and joined a band called The Young and the Useless. The band was raw and didn’t accomplish much beyond playing small local gigs. Some of those gigs saw them sharing stages with another local punk band called the Beastie Boys.

Beastie Boys were originally a four member band and when the guitarist left Ad-Rock joined. They soon started experimenting with hip hop music and released a single called “Cooky Puss” in 1983. The song was essentially a prank phone call set to a rudimentary beat. The song had moderate local success and soon the Beastie Boys were singularly focused on rap music. This change in direction led to the departure of their drummer and the Beastie Boys lineup we know and love – Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock – was born.

Rap music in 1983 was nothing like it is today. It did not exist on a national level but rather consisted of local scenes in big cities. As with any scene there are unwritten rules governing sound, look and behavior. Just a few years earlier the Beastie Boys wouldn’t have had a chance of succeeding in the New York rap scene. Lucky for them a rap group that shared their punk rock ethos – screw your rules – hit the scene in 1981. In a world dominated by the leather pants and jheri curl style of artists like Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel, Run DMC emerged to change the rules.

Run DMC, with their new sound and their track suits, fedoras and shell toes, opened a crack in the hip hop scene that allowed a band like Beastie Boys to gain a foothold. Still facing an uphill battle by being white artists in a scene dominated by black artists, the Beastie Boys addressed this challenge by remaining 100% faithful to their punk roots. They never tried to conform to the scene and that, as well as their excellent music, allowed them to fit into it. The Beastie Boys did not look, sound or act like other New York rap groups and this earned them the respect of those groups.

As they started to incorporate more hip hop into their shows the Boys realized they needed a proper DJ. They hired Rick Rubin, another punk rock convert, then known as DJ Double R. Rubin had played guitar in the punk/hardcore band Hose and they were moderately successful, touring with bands like Minor Threat, Butthole Surfers and the Circle Jerks. Rubin, like the Beasties, found himself increasingly drawn to the NYC hip hop scene and taught himself to DJ. Rubin also ran a record label called Def Jam out of his dorm room.

As fate would have it, Rubin befriended concert promoter Russell Simmons, the brother of Run DMC’s Reverend Run. Rubin brought Russell Simmons onboard at Def Jam and the label signed the Beasties along with artists like LL Cool J and Public Enemy. The Beasties released popular singles during this time and eventually toured with Madonna in 1985.  In 1986 Simmons and Rubin produced the landmark 1986 Run DMC album “Raising Hell”, which featured the massive rock-rap crossover “Walk This Way” with Aerosmith.

The Beastie Boys released their first full length album that same year, the multi-platinum “Licensed to Ill”. This album was enormous and it, along with a tour supporting Run DMC, propelled the Boys to never before seen heights in the rap world. Despite their success, there was quite a bit of negativity surrounding the band. The Beastie Boys were punks and behaved like punks, leaving controversy, lawsuits and general debauchery in their wake. A riot at one of their concerts in Liverpool, England in 1987 resulted in Ad-Rock being arrested for assault.

Despite, or perhaps because of all this, the Beastie Boys outgrew the limits of Def Jam and signed with Capitol Records in 1988. Using the resources Capitol provided, they released “Paul’s Boutique”. This album failed to sell like their debut but it was a stunning jump forward for the band. Gone (mostly) were the juvenile lyrics and simplistic beats, replaced with intelligent and heavily layered sampling and beats. Rolling Stone magazine’s review of “Paul’s Boutique” called the album, “the Pet Sounds/Dark Side of the Moon of hip hop”. Contrast that with the Rolling Stone review of “Licensed to Ill” titled “Three Idiots Create a Masterpiece”. This change in perception of Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D happened in only two short years.

Ad-Rock and the Beasties continued to record and tour through the death of MCA (Adam Yauch) in 2012. Throughout that time the Beasties never abandoned their instruments or their rock and roll roots. They remained completely unique and true to themselves and their music. They inspired a number of diverse acts including Rage Against the Machine, Sublime and Eminem. The Beastie Boys have sold over 50 million albums, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 and are one of the most successful rap groups in history.

Ad-Rock remains involved in music, playing in a jazz band called the Tender Moments as well as re-mixing hip hop songs. He does a bit of acting as well and is married to punk singer Kathleen Hanna. Short of winning the Nobel Prize, nothing Ad-Rock does from here on out can eclipse what he achieved with the Beastie Boys.

The Young and the Useless – “Real Men Don’t Floss” EP 1982:

Beastie Boys – “Egg Raid on Mojo” 1983:

Beastie Boys – “Fight For Your Right-Interview-Time to Get Ill” on the Joan Rivers show 1987:

Beastie Boys – “Live at PJ’s” on the David Letterman Show 1992:

Beastie Boys – “Sabotage” on the David Letterman Show 1994:

 

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